Fort Oglethorpe eyes sewer service for 'potential-for-growth' area

When three new Fort Oglethorpe City Council members take office in January, one thing they'll decide is whether to use sales tax revenue to expand sewer service to the north end of Mack Smith Road.

"It's a potential-for-growth area right close to the interstate," city Public Works Director Phil Parker said.

The proposed Mack Smith Road interceptor sewer project would provide about 6,000 feet of large-diameter, gravity-fed sewer pipe that could eliminate five small sewage pumping stations, including ones at Green Acres Mobile Homes Park and the Holiday Trav-L-Park, a campground for recreational vehicles, said Philip Schofield, a civil engineer with CTI Engineers Inc. in Chattanooga. He's drawn up preliminary plans for the project.

"They've been trying to get sewer up there for a long time," Schofield said.

He said the interceptor would provide sewer access directly to some 20 parcels with the potential of serving an additional 300 households in the mobile home and RV park.

If the interceptor is built, he said, the city could extend sewer service from the interceptor underneath West Chickamauga Creek to the Scruggs Road area north of the Costco warehouse store.

"There's one developer over there that's looking at it," Schofield said. "But we've got to get this interceptor in before we can even think about what ties into it."

Fort Oglethorpe likely would fund the sewer expansion with revenue from the special purpose local option sales tax, a levy of 1 cent per $1 of sales.

"We'll present all these possibilities to the incoming council and see what their pleasures are," Parker said.

County project almost done

Meanwhile, a nearby Catoosa County sewer project funded by county SPLOST revenue is nearing completion.

The $4.2 million Edison-Sutton Area Sanitary Sewer project, which provides sewer access for 277 properties, including residences, businesses, schools and several churches, should be finished by January or February.

"Most of the sewer line is already installed," Schofield said.

Residents are looking forward to being able to connect, he said.

"Most of the people want to tie in because they have septic tank problems," he said. "There's so much rock out there, the ground doesn't perc."

The work included resurfacing of eight streets after sewer pipes were installed. The project also will allow a pump station near Westside Elementary School to be decommissioned.

Talley Construction of Rossville was the contractor hired to do the work.